This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias
FICTION
1 To Italy, With Love by Nicky Pellegrino (Hachette, $34.99)
News from Italia, apposite to the author's best-selling novel about love and food in Italy: A new line of imported Italian foods, including olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sauces and vodka, has taken its name, history and inspiration from The Godfather. Corleone Fine Italian represents a collaboration between Los Angeles-based MJ Licensing and ViacomCBS Consumer Products, which oversees licensing and merchandising for Paramount Pictures, which released the film in 1972. It's an olive oil you can't refuse, etc.
2 She's a Killer by Kirsten McDougall (Victoria University Press, $30)
For almost as long Pellegrino has been at number one (eight weeks, I think), McDougall has been at number two with her widely admired eco-thriller.
3 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35)
4 Out Here by Chris Tse & Emma Barnes (Auckland University Press, $49.99)
Queer poetry, including "Between" by Rhian Gallagher:
Close in and distant, you had me.
Whichever way you moved
I was swept, arrested.
Between the stay of home
and flight, our poise,
our muddled disarray.
In greys of London light
mid-passage, on our walks
across Brooklyn Bridge
between one country and another
two zones to every hour.
Body into body, that fit,
between the letting go and hold,
your hand all night upon my hip.
5 The Last Guests by JP Pomare (Hachette, $34.99)
6 Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly (Victoria University Press, $35)
Wellington writer Mikee Sto Domingo recently conducted an insightful interview with the author. Highlights:
Q: What is your favourite chair?
A: I don’t think I even know any types of chairs by name besides Eames chairs. I read the most terrible thing about Eames chairs yesterday, it was from Helen Gurley Brown’s 1962 book Sex and the Single Girl and it listed "his Eames or other chair, or at his desk while he phones (especially his mother)" as "possible fellatio locations". I don’t have an Eames chair. I actually don’t have any chairs.
Q: How do you decide what colour belt to wear?
A: I don’t think there needs to be any set rules about which colour belt to wear. The real question is how big the buckle should be, if you feel confident enough to pull off a big cowboy vibe.
Q: What is the best outfit in Greta and Valdin?
A: When Betty shows up at her birthday wearing a tricolour summer dress, Swedish Hasbeens and Chanel lipstick in the middle of August. I also like Xabi’s all black turtleneck, jeans and Blundstones outfit when he’s bleeding softly and looking out the window, and V’s metallic turquoise suit.
7 Loop Tracks by Sue Orr (Victoria University Press, $35)
8 Cousins by Patricia Grace (Penguin Random House, $19)
9 Bug Week by Airini Beautrais (Victoria University Press, $30)
The first I read of the author's award-winning short story collection (it won the Jan Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards) was in the freely available online anthology The VUP Home Reader, published last year during lockdown. Her story "Sin City" was included. It was a startling read about swingers in a provincial city, and opened, "I pictured Margot and Gregor. I don’t know why, they weren’t worth picturing. Her over the basin, loose tits swinging. It was all Gregor’s idea to begin with, the parties, and for no better reason than that he was already fucking Margot, and wanted it to happen easier. It was often at Arthur’s place because Arthur had put in a deck and a Jacuzzi. Arthur was a lawyer and he could afford that shit. He could afford that shit the way Bill, who was a groundsman, could afford tinned beans. Arthur had been divorced twice, two kids with each, and was now married to Jean. One brat."
10 Double Helix by Eileen Merriman (Penguin Random House, $36)
NON-FICTION
Prediction: National Identity by Simon Bridges will storm back into the top 10 in next week's non-fiction chart. Meanwhile the publishers of my own book Cover Story: 100 beautiful, strange and frankly incredible New Zealand album covers have whistled up a second print-run to meet demand. From a review by Colin Hogg at ReadingRoom: "It's an LP-sized book dedicated to the golden age of New Zealand album covers…And it’s a nice handful, 12 inches by 12, a glossy, sturdy softback, weighing in at a kilo or so. It’ll take quite a bit of Christmas paper to wrap, but it’ll be a hit, believe me." Anyway, here's the latest top 10, below.
1 Lost and Found by Toni Street (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
2 Salad by Margo Flanagan & Rosa Flanagan (Allen & Unwin, $45)
3 The Joy of Gardening by Lynda Hallinan (Allen & Unwin, $45)
4 Sonny Bill Williams by Sonny Bill Williams & Alan Duff (Hachette, $49.99)
5 Steve Hansen: The Legacy by Gregor Paul (HarperCollins, $49.99)
6 Gone Bush by Paul Kilgour (HarperCollins, $39.99)
7 Aroha by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30)
8 After the Tampa by Abbas Nazari (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
9 Note to Self Journal by Rebekah Ballagh (Allen & Unwin, $29.99)
10 Dish by Sarah Tuck (McKenzie Publishing, $45)
